NASCAR B.C. (before crash) and A.D. (after Dale)

A year after all the Sturm und Drang of Dale Earnhardt's death at Daytona, life (and NASCAR) goes on pretty much as usual.

Billy Wade, 34, was killed in his 64 Mercury at Daytona during tire tests in January 1965.

February 11, 1959: A few days later, Teague goes for it. His car flips five times, and he is ejected, still strapped into the seat of his USAC car. Teague is the first driver killed at Big Bill's paved superspeedway. The USAC race finally runs in April, and George Amick gets the pole by turning 176.9 mph, just shy of Bettenhausen's record. During the race, Amick's car flips and skids upside-down. George Amick becomes the second driver killed at the big track - the second of what today is a toll of 34 dead, counting the four killed there in 2001. There was Earnhardt, then two motorcycle racers, then last December, a 17-year-old go-kart racer. The last three you likely never heard about.

February 25, 1959: Three days later, after "reviewing newsreel footage," Big Bill decides Lee Petty is the winner. Beauchamp has run only five NASCAR races, and Petty has run several hundred. To say the least, it's a popular decision among fans, who didn't know who Beauchamp was, since he was from "up north" (Iowa actually). Richard Petty, Lee's son, finishes 57th of the 59 starters.

1959-63: NASCAR gains strength, builds stars. Two at the top are "Little Joe" Weatherly and Glenn "Fireball" Roberts. NASCAR is on a roll. But 1964 would be a pivotal year, and a tragic one, too.

January 19, 1964: It starts when Joe Weatherly is killed after his car hits the wall at the season opener in Riverside, California. Then Fireball Roberts is killed that July, lingering for five excruciating weeks after he is severely burned in a crash at the World 600 in Charlotte, North Carolina. In October, Jimmy Pardue, a popular young driver who had finished second in the Daytona 500 that year, is killed during a tire test at Charlotte. And during a preseason tire test in January 1965, up-and-comer Billy Wade is killed at Daytona.

Even back then, it is clear what the problem is: The cars are going too fast for the tires. Paul Goldsmith, who had won the last Daytona beach race, captures the pole at the '64 Daytona 500 after going 174.910 mph. (And 27 years later, Bill Elliott's pole speed for the 2001 Daytona 500 is less than 9 mph faster than Goldsmith's.)

Drivers threaten to quit. The race engines that Ford and Chrysler have been running are banned. Ford carps but agrees to the ban. Chrysler boycotts half the 1965 season but eventually returns. NASCAR and Bill France have faced their biggest crisis - death and politics - and survived.

August 14, 1969: Eleven drivers meet in a hotel room in Ann Arbor, Michigan, just days before a NASCAR race at nearby Michigan International Speedway. Led by Richard Petty, the winningest NASCAR driver ever, the foundation is laid for the Professional Drivers Association, a goddamned union! A majority of the top drivers sign up. Their complaints are generic, with one exception: Big Bill had decided to build a track capable of speeds even faster than Daytona's, and that was worrisome. Talladega is to be 2.66 miles long (to Daytona's 2.5 miles) and the banking much steeper. Talladega, the drivers rightly determine, could be a 200-mph track, and that is just too damn fast.

September 14, 1969: True to their word, 37 members of the drivers' union, including Richard Petty, boycott the first race at Talladega. Charlie Glotzbach is the fastest qualifier at 199.466 mph. But that is too fast even for Glotzbach; after his instincts for self-preservation awaken, he walks. Big Bill, incensed at the whole idea of a union, won't bend. After all, he had faced down a union effort in 1961 led by Curtis Turner, whom he then banned "for life." So France assembles 36 cars, with 23 of them "Grand Touring" cars from a lesser division - cars such as AMC Javelins and Ford Mustangs. Still, there are some name drivers - Tiny Lund, Bobby Isaac, Buck Baker, and Richard Childress driving a Chevrolet Camaro. Childress would go on to greater fame as Dale Earnhardt's car owner. Richard Brickhouse, seldom heard from before or after this race, wins. The race is a success in that no one gets killed, and that is about all. But it is enough to break the drivers' union. France and NASCAR look invincible. All that has happened since has only strengthened that notion.

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*AccuPayment estimates payments under various scenarios for budgeting and informational purposes only. AccuPayment does not state credit or lease terms that are available from a creditor or lessor, and AccuPayment is not an offer or promotion of a credit or lease transaction.